Facts and Myths about Dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental disorder typically attributed to children who show problems with reading and spelling, and where these problems can not be explained by lower levels of intelligence, socioeconomic status, exposure to education or emotional problems. How common is it? Reports of the prevalence of dyslexia differ and can range from 5% to 20% of the population. So why such a broad estimate? One of the reasons is the imprecise nature of diagnosis.

How do we define the cutoff point for poor reading? How is poor reading defined? Is it relative to a child’s peers or to their own academic abilities? Before seeking diagnosis, obviously early identification of potential problems with reading and spelling is required.

And this is usually prompted by concern from a parent or teacher.

This is one of the challenging obstacles to diagnosing dyslexia. We’ll now look at three neuromyths and how they might prevent understanding the immediate and long-term challenges people with dyslexia face. First Neuromyth: children with dyslexia experienced visual stress and reverse letters and words. So what’s visual stress? It’s the sensation of distortions and discomfort when reading, and in the past, it was thought to be a cause of dyslexia.

However, we now know it’s not the case and several children and adults without a diagnosis of dyslexia can suffer from visual stress. What about letter and word reversal? This might happen but here’s the thing, some dyslexic children make this mistake, but so did their peers. It is a very common developmental phenomenon in emerging literacy skills. There is no evidence that this behavior is linked to later problems in learning to read or spell typical of those with dyslexia.

It is important to note that children who never experienced visual stress or reverse letters or words can have dyslexia.

Visual-based neuromyths related to dyslexia likely evolved from the original description of this condition as “word blindness”.

However, this explanation has long since been dispelled as behavioral and neuro-imaging studies have presented evidence of phonological, that is sound-based, and other cognitive deficits and anatomical differences in the brains of children with dyslexia. So why are these misconceptions an issue? If visual stress, letter or word reversal, are believed to be a core symptom of dyslexia, and you don’t see any sign of it.

A child may not be suspected of potentially being dyslexic and they’re delayed literacy development, may be, by accident, interpreted as lower intelligence or even laziness. Dyslexia manifests in many ways, including being less able to recognize rhyming patterns, difficulty in breaking words into different sounds and using vague or inexact vocabulary. Observable characteristics of dyslexia may also vary with age. At the early stages of reading, difficulties with decoding individual words may be evident.

Later on, comprehension and fluency problems may be more obvious as reading demands increase. In adulthood, difficulties may focus on spelling and written expression. Broader cognitive difficulties affecting, for example, memory, attention and cognitive control, have been found in children and adults.

Second Neuromyth: Children with dyslexia are right brain dominant. This is the idea that some people are left-brained and others are right-brained and it comes from lateralization research, which has used neuro-imaging to show the association of some cognitive skills with increased neural activity in a specific brain hemisphere. From this arose the idea that the right side of the brain is more related to spatial and creative abilities, and the left, more related to language and reasoning.

Then from this arose the neuromyth that dyslexic people are right-brained and therefore struggle with reading but are more creative. The research evidence, however, shows that abilities such as language and creativity are reliant on the integration of both hemispheres and left brain right brain dominance as a concept was discredited in the 1980s. Hemisphere specific cortical activation is a real phenomenon. But when we think of specific skills, such as literacy, we must bear in mind that the brain is an incredibly complex and fully integrated system.

Why is believing in this neuromyth dangerous?

Aside from the obvious problem of expecting dyslexic children to be more creative, this neuromyth can cause misguided educational techniques in place of interventions that could actually help children who struggle with reading, writing, and spelling. Effective teaching techniques for children with dyslexia include word sound awareness, orthographic spelling rules, and strategies to section words into affixes and roots. And lastly, the third neuromyth: dyslexia goes away once children learn to read through remediation. This is arguably the neuromyth that has the most detrimental impact on the long-term outcomes for people with dyslexia.

There was a growing body of evidence that broader cognitive difficulties related to dyslexia affect memory, attention, executive function.

These impairments can persist long after reading and spelling have been improved by remediation. Dyslexia does not just disappear once an individual reaches adulthood.

Its effects are lifelong. Studies with dyslexic adults have found increased forgetfulness, memory failure, daydreaming, problems with planning, time management and structuring written information. Therefore, dyslexia is not limited to phonological problems, but can present very real challenges in adult life, such as in the workplace, and can affect career progression.

Studies with dyslexic adults have found that people with dyslexia have to work longer, and harder, in their workplace to work at an equivalent level, to their non-dyslexic peers. This can affect mental health and self-esteem. Adding to this, adults with dyslexia tend not to disclose their diagnosis. One study found that 85% of adults with dyslexia who had adjustments in higher education did not reveal their dyslexia to their employer. Why?

Reasons given include fear of losing their job, fear of discrimination and being thought stupid. So how can we support adults with dyslexia? External memory aids and time prompts could decrease the likelihood of task failure, and time adjustments and written instructions can reduce cognitive load. So let’s move away from the assumption that visual stress, letter and word reversal or advanced creativity are all sure signs a child is dyslexic. They are not.

Conversely, an absence of these behaviors does not indicate the child is unlikely to have dyslexia. A diagnosis of dyslexia requires a clinical assessment. However, we can still be aware of certain behaviors that might indicate a child is at risk of a dyslexia diagnosis. When a child reaches school, forgetfulness, problems with following instructions, time management and attention, are all areas of cognition which are typically impaired in children with dyslexia.

Obviously it is difficult, if not impossible, to track performance in all these areas as children develop, just be aware. Thank you for your attention, and don’t hesitate to check out more of our videos.

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